[UgaBYTES] [witfor] Re: Getting Started

[Peter Burgess]

Dear Colleagues

Everyone seems to have bought in to the idea that education and
knowledge are important and have value. I think this is only half the
story ... in order for education and knowledge to have value there
must also be opportunity and the enabling resources.

I will argue that 50% of the global population (The bottom half of the
pyramid ... BOP) need more water, food, shelter, clothes, health care
and education ... they need more of the basics. Getting more of the
basics is very very valuable.

As I see it, most of the ICT4D efforts have tended to focus on sending
knowledge to the BOP and doing education and training ... much less on
figuring out how to increase opportunity and to mobilize resources
needed for development. Accordingly I would like to see more priority
given to flowing information from the community to those who might be
interested in helping with better decision making at high levels and
getting critical resources to places where they are going to do the
most good.

While there are all sorts of management systems that deliver
information to top corporate executives and to the capital markets,
nothing like it is available for the use of society's resources and
the value creation and value destruction going on  in communities
round the world. This is a serious systemic problem.

Tr-Ac-Net has an emerging system of Analytical Accounting for
Community Impact (AACI) ... and it would be good to collaborate with
the global telecentre movement in due course in order to accelerate
deployment and start to make some impact on development performance
and what appear to be obscene levels of fund misuse.

Sincerely

Peter Burgess
____________
Peter Burgess
The Transparency and Accountability Network: Tr-Ac-Net in New York
www.tr-ac-net.org
Analytical Accountancy for Community Impact
Integrated Malaria Management Consortium (IMMC)
The Tr-Ac-Net blogs ... start at http://tracnetvision.blogspot.com
917 432 1191 or 212 772 6918 peterbnyc at gmail.com